The Daily Worker

LIVING IN STEEL TOWNS

It is appropriate that in Pittsburgh, the stronghold of the mighty steel trust, there should be organised the first group of Communist worker-correspondents. We hope that this will be the first of many similar groups that will form lines of communication for the Communist press and some day make it unnecessary to depend upon capitalist news services.

The DAILY WORKER will be a real mass organ when all its news is gathered and written by worker-correspondents in every industrial center. This article is the first contribution of the Pittsburgh worker-correspondent group. They deal with life and living conditions of the workers.

This is the kind of material that the DAILY WORKER wants. It is not intended that the articles and news stories should do more than conform to a certain readable form so far as style is concerned. It is desirable that each correspondent develop his own inclinations but clearness, reasonable brevity and observation expressed in forceful description should be striven for. Ed. Note.

By MARGARET YEAGER

In the heart of the greatest steel center of the world, where thousands of workers toil every day to make a mere living lies the noble town of Braddock, the town where such men as Corey, Carnegie, and Schwab started to make their first millions.

Braddock the largest town in this steel center is surrounded by such holes of humanity as Port Perry, Rankin, Bessemer and Brinton, in which towns the majority of actual toilers of the steel mills live while the flunkeys live in the more exclusive towns of North Braddock, and Swissvale.

In speaking of holes of humanity, let me explain a little why such a term is not even strong enough to express the rotten living conditions these steel workers endure: All of these towns are built around the steel mills and most of the workers live within ten minutes of their places of work.

Their homes in most cases consisting of two or three rooms, with sanitary conditions that are very commonly being shared by as many as three and four families. The homes (Continued on Page 6)
LETTER TELLS OF
LIFE IN HEART
OF STEEL CENTER
Pittsburgh Has Group of
Worker-Correspondents

(Continued from page 1.)

are hardly worthy of being called
homes but since that is the term in
common use, we will apply it here.

Most of these homes are ramshackle,
humble dwellings,-with walls unplas-
tered, containing no gas or electricity,
usually water is carried in from the
outside from wells contaminated with
the sewage that runs directly past the
wells. The poor worker in some in-
stanes is allowed a small yard for his
children to play in, but in addition
to probably ten children the yard con-
tains a cess-pool, well, and probably a
gutter where the sewage from the
house runs thru.

In the summer it certainly must be
very enjoyable to be playing in such a
dump, where they can have the com-
panionship of mosquitoes, flies, and
other sorts of vermin. Quite often
the landlords of these homes deliber-
ately neglect to make repairs on the
houses, merely to increase their pro-
fits and tell them that if they desire
anything better they should move.
which of course. the worker is not in
a position to do.

The Negro Colony.

Not far from the steel mills is a
colony of Negro workers imported
from the south. This is the worst
hole imaginable to be inhabited by
any living creature. The streets are
unpaved, no lights at night, but of
course, the question of lights does not
concern the steel barons since they
can easily say that the illumination
from our blast furnaces is sufficient
light for anyone to see his way. The
steel kings did have built a number
of barracks to house these Negro
workers consisting of one story. wooden, one-roomed cages, in which from
the outside can be seen bunks arrang-
ed in rows on which the workers are
expected to rest.

The ventilation is very poor. and
on summer evenings these Negroes
can be seen sitting outside to cool
off after a long day's laboring at the
hot beds of the steel mills, at night
only to return to a packed room,
vermin considered, to try to recuper-
ate for the next day's work.

Not Fit For Stables.

Where the Negro workers have
families they are housed in old,
rumble down shacks which are not
even fit to serve as stables. While liv-
ing in these shacks the children of the
exploited workers are told that they
can some day become president of the
United States. if they are only ambi-
tious enough to try.

These children are also soft soaped
with the stories of how Carnegie,
Schwab, and Corey made their mil-
lions. But between starvation, and
plenty of worry. they have very little
time to consider whether or not these
stories told them contain in any way,
shape, manner and form any truth.
They accept them as a matter of
course and look upon them as a myth.

The Flunkeys Live Better.

Comparing the homes of the flun-
keys with the homes of these work-
ers the difference is as between day
and night. On one hand one sees
how the actual producer of the steel
mills live while on the other hand
one sees the luxury and wealth of
the parasites living from the toil of
these workers. The parasites have
their cars and live far enough from
the steel mills that they do not have
to have illumination from the blast
furnaces light their way. Going past
the offices of the steel mills their
cars stand in rows all set and ready
to take the bosses away from that mi-
serable neighborhood, while the poor
worker starts on his weary drudge
homeward and cannot even then es-
cape the tortures of the mills, hav-
ing all the smoke and noise still to
contend with after he is once home
from his long day's drudge in the
steel mills.